NIETZSCHE AND NIHILISM

Peter Sjstedt Hughes

Lecture to the Ethical Society 12 November 2009

Nietzsche's life (1844-1900)

Born in Rcken, near Leipzig, in Prussia.
His father (a Lutheran pastor) died in 1849, and Nietzsche (Nz)
subsequently lived with his mother, grandmother, two aunts and
younger sister.
1864: Studied Theology and Philology at University of Bonn but
after one semester dropped theology as he had lost his faith.
1869: at the age of 24, Nz became professor of Philology at the
University of Basel, where he renounced his Prussian citizcnship
and was thereafter officially stateless for the rest of his life.
1879: Nz had to leave his post due to illness. Hereafter he travelled
throughout Europe developing his philosophy.
1889: suffered a mental breakdown, never published thereafter.
1900: died (unknown cause, possibly syphilis or frontotemporal
dementia).

For Nietzsche the word nihilism had a number of meanings, which I shall
seek to clarify.
No objective values/morals
No objective facts
These two combined we can call theoretical nihilism
Active Nihilism: the positive use of theoretical nihilism (to which Nz
belonged)
Passive Nihilism: a negative effect of theoretical nihilism (e.g.
Schopenhauerian pessimism, existential angst)
Slave morality (esp. Christianity from a Dionysian perspective)

So, we begin by examining theoretical nihilism, which will lead to the

examination of the other types, and also provide a general overview of key
Nietzschean concepts.

Theoretical Nihilism
The famous phrase, God is Dead begins to explain nihilism:
This is a much misunderstood concept - it does, of course, not mcan
that God once lived but now is dead!
Nz considers the non-existence of God as a given. His philosophy
focuses on the consequences of the loss of such belief.
In his book The Joyous Science, most of which was written in 1882, he
writes,
'God is dead; but given the way of men, there may be caves for
thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown'[ 108].
Then he writcs about it in the parable of the madman [ 125]:
A madman runs into a market place and cries out loud that 'we have killed
god ... There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us
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 - for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all
history hitherto.'
This parable heralds the coining of the nihilistic age because if one does not
believe in God, if He is dead, there is no foundation for Christian morality.
Moreover, in the West, Christian morality has ingrained itself so deeply into
our mode of thinking that we do not even recognise its presence. Nz argues
that present western morality rests on Christian morality even if it consciously
rejects it - in egalitarianism, socialism, democracy, liberalism, humanism, etc.
'When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the
right to Christian morality For the latter is absolutely not self-evident'
[TI, eum, s5].
For Nietzsche, the morals of the modern age are ultimately derived from
Christianity, for example, selflessness, humility, equality, pleasure as good,
pain as bad, compassion, etc. These types of morals Nz calls slave morals.
Theoretical nihilism is the view that these, or any other, ethics are not
ohlectively justifiable.

Master and Slave Morality

In onc of his later books, Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), Nz identifies two
general ethical types throughout history and the world: master and slave
morality.
Master morality is an ideology derived from stronger typology of
human: strength, pride, valour honour power Historical examples
include the Samurai, the Spartans, the Vikings, the Romans and similar
'heroic cultures'.
Slave Morality is an ideology originally derived from physically and
mentally weaker cultures. Their values derive from that which makes
their life more bearable: compassion, humility, selflessness, asceticism,
chastity, etc.
Due to the west's history, we have inherited slave morality through
Christianity. But as god is dead, there is no longer any reason to believe in this
type of morality, though it may take centuries to register this.

An important side issue here is that, for Nietzsche, all values, all morality, is
adopted according to his concept of the will to power.
For Nz, life is will to power: This is the fundamental drive that is life.
The will to powcr subsumes the older (Schopenhauerian) concept of the
will to survive, or thc survival instinct.
Every living being seeks power, albeit mostly subconsciously, through
gaining 'knowledge', exploiting environment (inc. eating, ingesting),
appropriating the unfamiliar to the familiar, etc.
The survival instinct is merely the lowest extent of the will to power: if
one is not alive, one cannot gain power. Moreover, sometimcs one risks
one's life in order to increase one's powcr, which is better explained
through the will to power than will to survive.
Consequently, the values one has are bascd on what will increase one's
power (chiefly subconsciously): one believes in what is in one's power
interest.
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 Thus those who are weak will value compassion as it elevates their
power; those who have a low status will believe in equality as it heightens
their power; those who have no strengths will value humility as it brings
others to one's level thereby relatively increasing one's sense of power.

The Slave Revolt in Morals

The genesis of western culture did not originate in Greece as much as in what
is now Israel:
Nietzsche argued that when the (master-moralist) Romans took over what
is now Israel - starting in 37BCE escalating to the sack of Jerusalem in
70CE, following the first of three Jewish-Roman Wars ('the Great
Revolt'), and ending with Hadrian's expulsion of the Jews in 135CE - a
number of low-status Jewish people who were now subjected to Roman
rule slaves') invented Christianity as it valued the wcak, the slaves, and
thereby devalued the Roman masters and their master morality.
E.g. In Matthew 5 (Sermon on the Mount): Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth'
Christianity, as a slave revolt against the Romans, introduced a morality
which empowered the weak but devalued the strong.
'Suppose the abused, oppressed, suffering, unfree, those uncertain of
themselves and weaty should moralize: what would their moral
evaluation have in common? ... here it is that pity, the kind and helping
hand, the warm heart, patience, industriousness, humility, friendliness
come into honour ... virtually the only means of enduring the burden of
existence.'[BGE 260j

In sum, Christianity began as a power structure which empowered the weak by

inhibiting the strong. This slave morality was justified through metaphysical
means: the existence of God as a judge who blessed the weak and punished the
strong.
Indeed this is predominantly where the dichotomy 'good and evil'
derives as we know it today. But if we reject the existence of God, we
thereby reject the dichotomy.
The Romans eventually legalised Christianity in 312CE as Constantine
converted. And now of course the hub of Christianity lies within Rome.

Descriptive and Prescriptive Morality

It is commonly objected that we do not need God in order to establish what
Nietzsche calls slave morality. Utilitarians, humanists, evolutionary
psychologists, contractarians, etc all make this claim: that reason and
experience can justify what we call morality. Here it is important to make a
distinction between descriptive and prescriptive/normative morality.

If God exists, He gives us morality in two main ways:

Through prophets to scripture (e.g 10 Commandments, Beatitudes)
As the purpose of our lives: 'fellowship with God'
Nietzsche argues that with the death of belief in God, one loses these. And
this includes the purpose of life.
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 Without a purpose, one cannot logically say whether something is good
or bad. Good - for what? If we came across a mysterious cube in a
forcst, and I asked, "Is it good'', you would not be able to provide an
answer as you would not know its purpose.
St Thomas Aquinas (1224-74CE) exemplified this logic in his Natural Law
derived from Aristotle's notion of the Prime Mover and 'Final Causes'/
Telos/Purpose:
As we know that the purpose of life is fellowship with God, a person
who deviates from this telos is considered bad/evil/sinful.
But if God is dead, and therefore we have no purpose, we cannot say
whether a person is good or bad, moral or immoral (like the cube). This led
to the existentialism of the 1960s, particularly Sartre's.

We can describe people's morals, and we can describe why they have them
(e.g. evolution), but from that description (fact) we cannot logically deduce a
prescription: that we ought to behave like that.
We cannot derive an ought from an is, a value from a fact. This was David
Hume's 'guillotine': the is-ought gap. As Hurne wrote, 'It is not contraty to
reason to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of my finger '
An ought comes from an if (telos); it cannot come from an is.

In sum, descriptive morality can explain why people behave morally;

prescriptive morality tells people how they ought to behave. E.g. It is
erroneous to claim that because we have evolved compassion as it helped our
survival, therefore we ought to be compassionate. We could by the same logic
argue that as we evolved aggression we ought to be aggressive. This is
theoretical nihilism: values cannot be objective, only subjective. Nietzsche
also calls this perspectivism:
That values are not based on objective, universal facts; but rather on one's
power perspective. From the perspective of the weak, slave morality is
valuable. From the perspective of the strong, master morality is valuable.

Active and Passive Nihilism

The next question becomes, How do we react to this death of slave values?

Passive Nihilism: The slave type will be what Nz calls a passive nihilist:
they will believe that morality IS only slave morality, and so with its death
nothing remains life is pointless.
Examples include Schopenhaucr and his pessimism, as well as those
who suffer existential angst, depressives.
This type will not be able to cope with and so not enjoy the freedom
that theoretical nihilism has offered.
Active Nihilism: the master type, or Dionysian as Nz calls him, will
consider the destruction of traditional moral values as a godsend (as it were):
They will no longer be encaged by values that were never suited to their
perspective, their will to power. They will be free to invent their own
values (as in master morality) whilst realising that these too are only
subjective and therefore based on their perspective. As well as a
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 perspectivist, Nietzsche is therefore also known as an individualist and
a free spirit (freigeist) advocate. 'Few are made for independence - it is
a privilege of the strong' [BGE 29]
To become a true active nihilist, or free spirit, is a dangerous activity as one
will constantly be at odds with the prevailing ideology of the age - thcrefore
one must be strong to enter this mode of being.
Nietzsche identifies himself as an active nihilist: 'That I have been a
thorough-going nihilist, I have admitted to myself only recently. '[WP 25]

This admission can scem confusing as often Nietzsche writes against

'nihilism'. But when he writes against it, he means passive nihilism as well as
slave morality, which he in fact identifies as a nihilism because its values are
non-values from the perspective of a Dionysian. In sum, Nietzsche criticises
Passive nihilism and slave morality and advocates active nihilism and master
morality.
To nuance Nietzsche further, although he believes in theoretical nihilism, he
believes practical nihilism to be impossible:
To live is to evaluate, to have no values is to be dead. For example,
perception itself is valuation: the human colour spectrum is valuable to
us evolutionarily in order to gain power.
Theoretical nihilism understands this and realises that all such valuation
is subjective, not objective. Therefore there is no value that ought to be
held by all.
Objective morality is impossible; subjective morality is necessary.
Active nihilism is promoted byNietzsche to improve mankind so to
lead the way to the Overman/Ubermensch: the Overman is to man,
what man is to ape.
Nietzsche's last sentence in his autobiography:
'Have I been understood? - Dionysus against the Crucified'

PAUL DIRAC ON RELIGION

An extract from Werner Heisenberg's memoirs illustrating the great theoretical
physicist Paul Dirac;s views on religion

Paul Dirac had joined us in the meantime. He [Paul Diraci had only just turned
twenty-five, and had little time for tolerance.
"I don't know why we are talking about religion," he objected. "If we are
honest and scientists have to be we must admit that religion is a jumble of false
assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human
imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much
more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have
personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand
so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions.
"I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us
in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive
questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the
poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is
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